Welcome back friends What I wanna talk about with you today was prompted by noticing Not just one or two, but a trend of young people ending romantic relationships. People in my circles, people who I care about And if you've ever been broken up with, then you can understand there's pain involved but there's pain on the other side of coming to the realization that the relationship has run... the best parts of it have already happened, and you've outgrown it. And so there's pain in being the one initiating a breakup. And the reason I bring this up is I'm noticing these young people and their resiliency to do the self-care, to love themselves enough to be real and authentic with and true to their hearts so that they can be true to the world outside of their hearts. And I think that's just so beautiful. And here I am in my fifties learning from these young people, and I love that so much. And if you were with me last week, you know I offered a guided meditation about growth. I used GROW as an acronym, and I used the metaphor of a plant or a tree. And what I'm realizing is I'm catching up to these young people. I am learning to develop the most... single most important relationship I have, which is with myself, so that I can be the better relationship with the people in my life experience. The mom, the spouse, the neighbor, the sister, the friend, the encourager. I love the roles that I play, but I am undoing a lot of tangled mess that I created as a younger person. And one of the things that keeps coming up, it's like a spiral learning process for me, is some more rings on the coffee table left from my teaching days. And so I'm gonna share this with you, not from a place of wounding, but from a place of sharing from my scars. If you've ever heard of Chiron, the wounded healer in astrology everybody has that in their chart. So if you're at all curious... maybe you're an expert at astrology. I'm not, in the least. I do not profess to be an expert. But that is one area where it's said that we're each have our own life path- And that is one of the places where we can show the most healing and the most growth, and mine happens to be connected to career. So I guess that's why I've spent so much time circling back to my teaching stories and processing and letting it go layer by layer by layer. I wanna show up as the best possible version of myself and be the permission slip for others to do the same along with me. And so I found myself making this chart today, just in my journal very casually, as seeing myself as a teacher and the role that I played as a teacher, and how the different facets of it corresponded to me as a student. And how the space that I'm in right now has so much more space than either of those two roles ever did, that I love teaching and I love learning now so much more because from... it's from a space of freedom. I have let myself out of that invisible cage. I'm not saying if you're a teacher or student, "Go, quick, get out of the cage." That's not at all what it is. But the way I set myself up because I didn't have better information, I ended up ma-making my first career as a teacher a learning experience, but also a cage, an invisible cage. So just to give a few examples, and if you've already tangented because you've identified something that resonates and you're already unpacking it, then go to it. But maybe if you're sticking with me right now, you might appreciate these examples so that you can maybe finish clearing out the last layer of something that's your invisible cage. Because as long as we're living here, we're not finished. We're still growing, and part of the growing is healing stuff that presents itself again in different stages because we come to it with new wisdom. So as a teacher, I was taught to always have a plan and always have a backup for that plan, and always have a plan for when that plan is finished, so I became a master planner as a teacher. So I gotta tell you, there was a lot of plans in my head. It was overwhelming. It really was. I don't know how much service I performed for my students with all of the pressure in my head to follow a curriculum and to just- Check all the boxes did everything I could to set these kids up for success. I loved my students, but sometimes teaching was so hard because I was so focused on being good enough and making sure that my plans were acceptable. The flip side of that was as a student was the overwhelm of following the syllabus, following the curriculum, doing the homework, keeping up with all of my teachers. Neither one of those descriptions offer a lot of space. So right now, I am unpacking all of that, the leftovers, to trust my flow, to trust that I share what I've learned. Every day, I learn something more, and I'm in the process of learning, and I'm never finished. And that in its space, that in itself is spaciousness and freedom that I think would've made me a much more joyful teacher and a much more joyful student because I am today Then back to my teacher training, there was the evaluations where our administrators would come in and rate us. Are we doing a good job? Are we controlling the classroom? Is our plan acceptable? Did we follow the curriculum enough? Did we get enough interaction from the students, or were they quiet enough, depending on your content? I was a music teacher, and a lot of my administrators really liked a quiet, organized classroom. Well, music is not a quiet subject. It's a noisy subject. We make joyful noise. And I think I kept us small because I was afraid of scaring the administrator, because I was afraid of my evaluations not being stellar, not good enough. And then as a student, I would... Through college, being a student, I really never had the joy of learning. I was so afraid of grades because I did not fit any of the testing, the evaluations, the way schools were just farming us through back then. And I'm not saying there aren't better situations these days, but that was my experience as a student. I fell between the cracks. I didn't make trouble because I didn't want attention. I didn't wanna draw attention to the fact that I thought my work was subpar, or I didn't read fast enough, or I didn't get the, the best grades. That was tough. That was tough. Never feeling good enough as a teacher or a student. And I know that sounds really pathetic, but that's not how I feel anymore. This is a scar. This is not an open wound. So I'm not asking for any pity, please. And I think everybody has some degree of something that maybe that relates to. As a teacher, I always wanted my administrator's approval. I was trained that music teachers are expendable. The arts and the music always first to be cut. So make yourself irreplaceable. Make it so that they can't run the school without you. So what did I do? I spread myself too thin. I took on too many duties. I was doing too much. I was over-delivering, and I was underfed. I really was. That job was a child until I had one, and then that started to shift the balance for me. And then as a student, whoa, I just wanted to make the teachers happy. I just wanted to people please. I wanted to have good enough grades I just wanted to do good enough for other people, not because I loved to learn. Boy, was I a late bloomer, but I'm so glad I figured it out now that I love to learn. Okay, rules. Teachers are expected to have classroom rules and expectations, and coming up with all of that, it just felt so... It felt so militant. It really did. I loved to be the teacher whose the students would come in, and they knew that they could relax, and they could make joyful noise. We could sing. We could play instruments. We could make some ruckus and really just take a break from life together. And there was the basic safety and courtesy that I had expectations for myself, but I expected nothing more from the children than I would for myself. That golden rule. And so as a student, I just, I was obedient. I was good out of fear of what would happen if I wasn't. Those are the, those are the extremes that I lived as a teacher and as a student. It was almost like Because I didn't know what else to be as a young adult, I went into education because, well, I'm like, I don't know, third, fourth generation educator in my family. And so I did what I was told to because I didn't have any other... I mean, I had dreams, but I was told I didn't have a good enough voice to perform, and so I just did the safe thing. And so I was kinda drafted into a military outfit that I was told fit me. And I did my best, and I learned a lot from the process. So no regrets, but it's just part of, my life plan was to figure out what fits and what doesn't fit and where are the boundaries. Where am I willing to call it quits? Well, thirteen years of public schools, and I did. I did. So I made it all the way through college. I got the degree. I got the certification. Then I got a certification in another state. So I proved I could finish something, but I also proved to myself that I don't have to stay where it just doesn't fit. So I did my best, and I served. Now, one of the things that I first didn't miss the most was the teaching job where- I finished. I had some wonderful colleagues, okay? But at the time, I don't think they realized how negative the teachers' room was. It was very negative. There was a lot of complaining and whining and, and while somebody might have perceived it more as productive, sharing information, I felt like it was more complaining than constructive. And so that was one of the things I most loved letting go was because these teachers really weren't supported by the administration like they deserved to be, and so they were really fighting their own battles as well. And the teachers' lounge was a place to safely articulate that without having political backlash. But boy, it sure drained my life force. It really did. And so leaving that behind was a relief, even though it was very scary to leave a job that I had committed so many years of my life to learn how to do and then to do. And then as a student, on the flip side of that, I was a sheep. I was a sheep. That's what I was. I wasn't president of my student council. I wasn't valedictorian. I had some... I had a handful of good friends. I had the theater, and there were happy moments in there. But if I look back, I cannot say that my presence really made a big difference in any of the schools I attended as a student. And so as a teacher, I sure as heck tried to make a much better, bigger impact. And I think I did at moments. I really do. So now that I've unpacked so many layers, these are just a few of the things that, looking back, I can see more clearly than I could at the time. I'm noticing my more healed self trusts her flow. I trust myself to, instead of living up to grades and expectations, is to measure back my progress. I'm so excited when I see, "Ooh, look what I did that I didn't know I could do," or, "Huh, look, I learned a better way to say that. I learned a better way to have that conversation. Oh, I learned how to set a boundary." These are things that instead of saying, "I wish I learned this twenty years ago," my more healed self says, "I'm so glad I figured that out. Look how far I've come." And, and that's one of my favorite-- I think that's why I thrive at the opportunity to see you, to see somebody else, and to mirror back the growth, the light, the sparkle I see in them. That's why encouragement is so important to me, because I think there were times where I stayed quiet, and I secretly was crying for some encouragement to make a choice or to build some confidence in myself as a student or as a young teacher. And it's so easy for me to see it in other people because I was longing for it myself. So that's where I am sharing with you from my healed beautiful scars. Another thing is instead of the approval and the teacher-pleasing or the people-pleasing, I approach things more with observation. It's more like, "Oh, that's what's happening," instead of always assigning pass, fail to it or good, bad to it. And I think that the ability to zoom out is so empowering because that means that there can be turbulence between other people, and I can observe, and I can care without actually getting shot in the crossfire. And so that is something I'm very grateful that this version of me is starting to really practice on the regular. And as far as the rules and obedience, I prefer curiosity now because curiosity lets me say, Hmm, does this resonate with me, or do I leave it on the table for somebody else?" Curiosity lets me be open to something that resonates more. Curiosity lets me recognize when somebody's coming from a different perspective, and maybe their response to me might not be what I like, but it might have more to do with them than me. And as far as being the soldier, the one in charge The one following, I get to just be because we're human beings. And I think it's such a beautiful thing to not worry so much as what is our charge so much as I am present in my being right now. And I think that when I am fully in my being, that's how I Picture Love in myself, therefore for you as well. So where have you seen growth in your life's journey that might have, circled back? Where can you measure back and see the growth of yourself back then to now? Where do you see the rings on the coffee table, those little scars? Where can you see the gifts that came from those experiences that make you a better, more present, more whole, more healed version of yourself today? That's what I would love to hear about. How are we using these life lessons to be more fully present, to be able to listen to our hearts because we've unpacked everybody else's expectations in this topic? And usually with time it's easier to speak honest on a topic rather than something that happened just last week. But if it did happen last week and you have reflections to offer, that's great. But you can be sure there'll be many more to come in the weeks, and the months, and the years ahead. But I think if we all are willing to understand that as long as we're breathing and we are living, then we are learning and we are not finished, and there is so much freedom in that promise of just being. So will you Picture Love with me today by celebrating your being? And please respond. I would love to know what have you been unpacking that you can measure back with lessons from a place of scars, not an open wound? Because the scars really do make you beautiful. Come back next time. Until then, keep picturing love.